Mega PTMs twice a year in government schools

With an aim to focus on quality education, around 1,000 Delhi government schools held ‘parent-teacher meetings’ on Sunday and encouraged greater involvement of parent’s in their children’s education.

Thanking parents for coming to the ‘parent-teacher meetings’ (PTMs) in a letter, Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia said that it was “first-of-its-kind” initiative where almost all the government schools organised such meetings on ther same day.
“The government is planning to hold such mega PTMs at least twice a year,” said Sisodia, while visiting Pratibha Vidayalaya at Civil Lines.

“Our teachers don’t lack talent, it’s just that the environment was not right (for teaching) and there weren’t enough facilities. But in the past one year a lot of improvement has taken place. Teachers and principals have been sent abroad on training (so that they can introduce international teaching techniques in schools here),” Sisodia said in the letter. 

These PTMs will also help in bringing the level of eduction of government schools at par with private institutions, he added.

There are nearly 16 lakh parents whose children study in the nearly 1,000 government schools in the city and the government now plans to issue I-cards to parents like private schools.

Parents interacted on a “one-on-one” basis with teachers and discussed their children’s learning and progress. This collaborative process was aimed at facilitating interaction between the parents and teacher on a regular basis.

The Department of Education has also introduced initiatives like Friday meetings wherein parents can meet senior officials from the department to discuss concerns and share feedback.

These meetings will be held on a weekly basis between noon and 1pm. The parents can now meet the teachers, the principal to discuss the progress of their child, good nutrition and hygiene practices, school attendance and other initiatives being planned by the institution, said the Delhi government.

“In addition to these, report cards which asses the child’s performance will be shared with the parents,” it added.

The government has earmarked a separate budget for these meetings and parents will be welcomed by volunteers to the schools for these meetings.

He further added that Department of Education has been working on a slew of reforms and has introduced several initiatives like ‘Chunauti 2018’, aimed at enabling students especially of class 9, to overcome the adverse effects of the no-detention policy. To encourage overall learning, schemes for primary and upper primary students, the department has launched programmes like ‘Jodo Gyan’, ‘Pragati’ and others, he added.

“Quality education can be imparted when parents and teachers work together for the overall development of their children and Delhi government remains committed in its efforts to strengthen this across all government schools. This initiativeis aimed at opening the doors of the school for all parents and celebrating the occasion with them,” Sisodia had said.

“We aim to enhance communication between parents and teachers and wish to remove the natural hesitation and bridge the existing gap.The Mega PTMs will be held twice a year across all schools in Delhi and we urge parents to participate in these meetings and celebrate this occasion.”